Customer Reviews

More Than They Could Chew: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sex, crime, and rock-n-roll! It's all here in this brilliant novel by Rob Roberge. We are gladly taken on a fast-paced, twisted ride down into the depths of societies' seedier side where everyone has a story they don't want told and allegiances depends on the quickest buck possible. Roberge captures this world with fearless honesty and addictive prose. And it's really damn funny to boot. Extremely highly recommended!

I loved this book. I've read it twice and am looking forward to reading it again. The characters are wonderful; erratic, irrational and completely human. The storytelling is top shelf. I was hooked after the first chapter and couldn't sleep until I'd finished it. He's as funny as Chandler and as edgy as Thompson. Highly recommended.

More Than They Could Chew starts off fast and then quickens, immersing the reader into those parts of life we tend to wish didn't exist. It's the lot of losers and the world they inhabit, the one filled with the homeless and seedy we turn away from, not realizing they're looking back at us.

Roberge captures this life honestly, brutally, and without flinching, using language that's a treat to savor. The characters are all real, too real, and the plot twists like pubic hair held over a burning match.

This book is good. It moves quickly, it delights on every page, and even contains a musical background you can follow if you're lucky enough to have a great CD collection!

Rob Roberge's first novel, More Than They Could Chew, is extremely well-written. Rob has honed his skills writing short stories and translates well into the longer form of novel-writing. He teaches at UCLA Extension's Writers' Program and his knowledge clearly shines through. Every page, including the final one, left me wanting more. I sincerely hope that Rob writes a sequel to this novel...soon! And may Nick Ray succeed in the next book!

Roberge's "More Than They Could Chew" narrator/philosopher, Nick Ray, has lived life, looked it in the eye, drank himself to sleep, and still managed to pick up a few lessons along the way --still, what he wants, even if he does not know exactly what it is, eludes him. Nick-Ray-wisdom, my favorite aspect of this 7-day Christmas-to-New-Year's-Eve tale, is weaved through the novel: "the future of the past is rarely the present" and "Doubt is weakness...To prepare for it is to pave the road and build a parking lot for all the bad news that pulls into your life." Roberge populates this story of blackmailing FBI witness-protected crooks living in Orange County (a.k.a. Reagan Country) with a concoction of memorable, 'other-side-of-the-tracks' characters comprising a disbarred lawyer-addict, a Russian thief and thug, a girlfriend with special multiple-step sexual needs involving gadgets and one gummy bear (instructions are included) and many many more side-kicks. Scenes involving a doctor's one-day cure for a facial tic and a special reenacting of the sinking of the Titanic are hilarious (even if somewhat seemingly sickening) --you'll be treated to several laugh-out-loud dark humor moments. The novel's leading lady, the Southern California coastal city of Long Beach comes alive with all its sights, smells and sounds, both its past and present, in Roberge's storytelling --it is completely absorbing. The story builds to a surprise and poetic ending that I found absolutely perfect --give us more Roberge!

"More Than They Could Chew" is a wonderful, darkly comic, gritty and entertaining story about a down-at-the-heels loser who's trying to make one big score.

Most crime novels read, at least to some extent, like echoes of other crime novels, but this is a boldly original book that clearly gives the sense that there is a unique, gifted talent behind it.

With its eclectic collection of one-of-a-kind characters, some passages of cringe-worthy violence, and elements of laugh-out-loud humor, "More Than They Could Chew" is one of the best books of the year so far.

Not so much thriller, as study on human life, More Than They Could Chew excels at drawing together several wholly different characters, and like ants under a magnify glass, watching what happens when they are thrown into extreme circumstances. The book is a fast-paced read, filled with many comedic moments, and well-worth the purchase.

Rob Roberge, in More Than They Could Chew, has crafted a dark, hypnotic narrative about an odd trio that runs headlong into an edgy and payoff-hazed names and numbers pursuit. Roberge deftly infuses that pursuit with promises of perversion and possibilities of betrayal. He takes the reader into the dirty corners of downtown city life and out into the vast yet claustrophobic desert. Narrator Nick Ray--never clever enough for his own good, and bound by his good-guy traits of crooked devotion, dumb benevolence, and jackpot dreams of a better and saner life--is wholly likeable.

More Than They Could Chew is an original work from an original voice. Roberge's work is stylistically gratifying, and his characters are sharp and tragicomically human in a noir tale that defies cliché. Highly recommended.

Catch Roberge's other fiction--his novel, Drive, and numerous short stories. And his music, too. It's all great.

Robert Roberge, author if "More Than They Could Chew", kept me glued to his suspenseful and sometimes dark reality of real life in the streets of Long Beach, California. This is a well written book and a credit to an author who is just beginning to bloom.

I purchased the book as something to read on a flight back home-something to keep my mind off of flying the friendly skies. I didn't expect to become consumed with this exciting, funny, dark and suspenseful thriller.

I literally knew nothing about the author and very little about the book itself. It was a great journey that allowed me to escape and see the world through the eyes of some very, very interesting characters. I'm not going to ruin any of your enjoyment by telling you more about the book. You'll have a great time with this exciting read!

Happy Reading to All!

Peter Cannice - "The Spooked Flyer" from Scottsdale, Arizona

Email: Horsepete@aol.com

An absolutely beautiful novel from cover to cover. Roberge has a way of infusing the most desperate characters with a humor that allows each word to seamlessly bleed into the next. Think of More Than They Could Chew as the literary superior of great recent films like Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and Smoking Aces.

Buy this novel now!